Cold Specks heats up the music scene

After delighting critics in Canada and the U.K. with early singles like Holland, rising Canadian singer-songwriter Al Spx has now released her debut album, I Predict A Graceful Expulsion.

The 23-year-old Etobicoke, Ont. chanteuse performs as Cold Specks, a pseudonym she says she took on to put some distance between herself and the album's sparsely arranged, evocative and "brutally honest" songs — which she wrote during a key period of her life.

Spx opens up to CBC's Laura Thompson about why she hid behind a pseudonym for so long and her interest in finding new meaning and making artistic discoveries through juxtaposition.